Ellen Pompeo, 55, has revealed the reason she won’t fully exit Grey’s Anatomy.
Pompeo has led the long-running medical drama series as Meredith Grey since the pilot episode in 2005. But in 2022, she took a step back starting from its 19th season.
In the three years since, she’s continued to appear on the show.
Now, in a new interview, Pompeo has explained why she will never actually leave Grey’s for good.
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“That would make no sense, emotionally or financially,” she told El País.
Pompeo pointed out that last year the show was streamed more than a billion times.
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“The companies that own the show and stream the show make a lot of money from our images and our voices and our faces,” she said.
“If I were to walk away completely, everybody gets to make money from my hard work for 20 years and I wouldn’t make any money.
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“To me, it doesn’t make any sense that everybody [else] gets to profit off of my hard work. And emotionally, the show means a lot to people,” she continued.
The star added she wants “to have an attitude of gratitude toward the show.”
Grey’s Anatomy is currently airing its 21st season, making it the longest running medical drama series in television history.
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The show has starred the likes of Patrick Dempsey, Sandra Oh, Katherine Heigl, Justin Chambers and Jesse Williams.
Pompeo recently opened up on the Call Her Daddy podcast about the decision reduce her role on Grey’s Anatomy to be able to spend time with her family and pursue other projects.
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“I didn’t know what I was going to do. I just knew that I really couldn’t do ‘Grey’s‘ anymore,” she admitted.
“It was to the point where I really just felt like an animal at the zoo. I’m a big believer in destiny. I thought, if there’s something else I’m meant to do, it’s gonna find me. But I know I have to leave this.”
Since stepping back from the show, Pompeo has recently starred in another TV series called Good American Family.
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